Just one Breath
by Calypso Diangelos
Summary: One Breath. One Word. How many broken hearts?


Just one Breath.  
  
By Calypso  
  
One Breath, One word. How many broken hearts?  
  
AN: Written for the My Immortal Evenstar's Tears Website. I don't think there's enough fanfic there and the webmistress has put forth such an effort I think she deserves a little help and a contribution here and there.  
  
Disclaimer: Behold, I am the all mighty owner of LOTR. Not.  
  
~ ~ ~   
  
The waterfalls crash with a murmur of Tranquility; the tress capture the starlight in the cradles of their budding leaves. A night such as this one should bring my heart peace; but instead my soul balances on the blade of a knife waiting to be cut to the quick. Tonight my lungs involuntarily hold in a gust of sweet starlit air; waiting to see whether they should allow me to suffocate, or live a living death.  
  
All the beauty of this night cannot belie the misgivings in my heart.   
  
Perhaps I am merely misjudging my fate; but in all the years I have know the woman standing a hairsbreadth away from me, I have yet to misjudge her heart - and her heart shall judge my fate.   
  
Her pale hands reach up to her hair; brushing the dark strands away from her face; upon her cheek something glitters momentarily - something that reflects the starlight suspiciously like a tear.  
  
I would offer my hand to her - and I know that she would take it. I would offer the comfort of my companionship; and I know she would accept it. But I make no offers, because I know that she would take it for every reason but the one I seek her to choose.  
  
So instead I stand still; letting her feel the cold comfort of her solitary thoughts.  
  
Her silent decisions.  
  
Her heart.  
  
Her heart… her heart holds such love, such compassion, that it is more beautiful even than her physical form. There are so many who look at her and see only that physical beauty, never knowing that there is an even more perfect gem within - like a child who is too enamored to a beautifully wrapped present to open it and see what lies inside.  
  
What lies inside her heart.   
  
She breaths – one indrawn breath. And I am frightened.   
  
Frightened of what she'll say. Frightened of what she'll decided.  
  
She exhales – and I can breath again – at least for the moment.   
  
My heart aches, I want to know what she won't say, but I fear what she will say. I fear the words she has long hidden from both of us. For until this moment I'm not certain even she herself knew the truth.  
  
The truth inside.  
  
Inside her heart.  
  
She draws a breath – and I hold mine.   
  
This time, she closes her eyes and does not breath out.  
  
This time she says one word.  
  
One breath.  
  
One word.  
  
"Yes."  
  
One word.   
  
One word to shatter the sky around me.  
  
To shatter the universe that I thought I knew.   
  
For a single drawn out moment, I picture myself falling. Weightless. Falling into the water below me.  
  
She said yes.  
  
Yes.   
  
Yes, she loves him.  
  
Yes, she will marry him.  
  
Aragorn.  
  
She has chosen Aragorn.  
  
Tonight, I have learned the truth.  
  
And yet… tonight…  
  
Tonight I cannot yet face what is true.   
  
But when dawn comes I will have to.   
  
Tonight, I don't have the luxury of centuries or miles. There is no distance, no time.  
  
Time.  
  
Odd how so little time suddenly matters so much. How the fleeting hours of one short night must teach me what more than two millennia has not.  
  
Millennia.  
  
Centuries.  
  
Decades.  
  
Days.  
  
Hours.  
  
Time.  
  
Time – so that is my downfall. I thought I would have an eternity to love. I thought I had forever.  
  
But now… now I have only tonight. Only my memories.  
  
Memories.   
  
Tears suddenly blur my eyes. Am I crying?  
  
Warriors aren't supposed to cry. Or so I thought as a child. But Warriors aren't supposed to be cowards either – and a coward is what I have been. A coward.  
  
She has chosen the man she loves – and he is not a coward.  
  
I whirl on me heel, and realize too late that the sudden movement might catch the moon light.   
  
Might catch her eye.   
  
"Legolas?"   
  
Too Late.  
  
I am too late.   
  
And so is she.  
  
She has seen me, but she cannot know.   
  
She cannot know what I know.  
  
That I love her – loved her. For she cannot know that I must now end that love.  
  
That with one breath, she has ended any love that existed inside my heart.  
  
With just one breath.  
  
~ Fini ~  



End file.
